Chapter 3 - The Broken Silence
For the first week, Dominic corrected everything Megan did.
He complained about a streak on a window.
He noticed if a pen was moved half an inch.
He demanded a chair be angled precisely to his liking.
He was infuriated if a folder was placed on top of another folder instead of beneath it.
On Friday, Megan accidentally struck a side table with the vacuum cleaner.
A heavy stack of documents slid onto the marble floor.
Dominic’s voice cracked across the office like a whip.
He ordered her to stop.
Megan straightened up and asked what was wrong.
He demanded to know if she understood what she had just done.
Megan calmly stated she had knocked over some papers.
Dominic’s eyes flared with a deep, unpredictable rage.
He told her those files represented fourteen months of intense negotiations.
Megan refused to back down.
She told him that standing there humiliating her would not put them back together.
A dangerous silence filled the massive room.
Megan’s pulse hammered in her ears.
She desperately needed this job to survive.
But she had spent too many years being spoken down to by landlords and supervisors.
She crouched down and gathered every document carefully.
She placed the files back on the expensive desk.
She apologized and asked him to show her the correct order.
Dominic stared at her in utter disbelief.
Most people apologized like hostages when they were around him.
Megan apologized like someone who still belonged to herself.
Finally, he pointed a finger and guided her through rebuilding the stack.
When she finished, she pushed her cart toward the heavy oak door.
Dominic called her name softly.
She turned around, waiting for him to fire her.
He seemed to reconsider whatever he had planned to say.
He simply told her that would be all for the day.
Outside, Nancy stood with both hands pressed to her temples.
She asked Megan if she was actively trying to become unemployed.
Megan defended herself by saying he was rude.
Nancy reminded her that he owned the house.
Megan shrugged, showing no fear of the billionaire.
As Megan walked down the hallway, she heard Dominic’s voice echoing from the office.
He was speaking to someone on the phone.
May you like
He told the caller that he had found the girl.
He said she had no idea what her son was actually worth.
